4 Walking Dead Comic Book Scenes The Show Had To Tone Down
The Walking Dead is undoubtedly TV's darkest, grittiest, goriest show about boring people arguing over trivial bullshit while zombies peek through the windows in the background. Still, for every 20 frank discussions about morality, there's at least one horrible on-screen death. It's pretty brutal. But even the show's most disturbing scenes don't so much as hold a candle to the searing genitals of the comic book ...
There's A Weird Fixation With Having Little Girls Murdered In Front Of Their Dads (Including Rick)
The Walking Dead shows us Lori, the wife of protagonist Rick Grimes, dying giving birth to a baby girl, Judith. If that's not tragic enough, her young son Carl then has to shoot her in the head before she turns into a zombie. It was a highly emotional moment -- which was, of course, instantly turned into a humorous meme by the internet.
"CORAL. WHADDAYA CALL A ZOMBIE MOM? CORAL!"
Luckily, baby Judith made it out OK, and survives as an adorable plot annoyance to this day. Come on, the writers of this show aren't monsters. But we can't say the same thing about the comic's author, Robert Kirkman. In the print version, Lori also dies, but none of that "new beginnings mixed with bitter ends" stuff -- she gets blasted with a shotgun while holding Judith in her arms. And unlike on TV, Rick gets a front-row seat:
In fairness, he was given a warning about wearing a poncho in the front rows.
So this is when Rick turns over Lori's body and sees that the baby is miraculously still alive, right? Nope! She's completely dead, though it's unclear if she died from the shot or from her mother's body falling on her. These are the important questions which we sincerely hope never get answered.
Daughters in general don't have an easy time in the comic. In the show, Carol kills a couple of ill characters to protect her friends from a potential infection. But in the comic, it's not the flu they contend with -- it's a serial killer. His first victims? Twin girls, whom he decapitates and leaves for their father to find. The heads then reanimate and start gnawing toward their dad like hardcore Castlevania enemies.
They reused this as a Doublemint ad in hell.
The father was Hershel the farmer, who actually gets off easy in the show. Before this moment in the comics, he had to watch yet another daughter get torn apart by zombies in front of him. Yes, in The Walking Dead books, "dads watching their girls get dismembered" is a running gag.
The Governor Removes The Teeth Of His Zombie Daughter To Make Out With Her
The Governor is a cruel bastard who rules the town / zombie gladiator arena of Woodbury. At one point in the show, we find out that he guy keeps his zombified young daughter chained in a secret room in his apartment. This is one of the Governor's few redeeming qualities. It shows that at one point he was capable of love, and gives us an emotional backstory for his descent into inhumanity.
Pictured: not humanity.
In the comic, the Governor also keeps a zombified young relative around -- not to remind him of the man he was and what he has lost, but in case he needs to get some of the strangest strange possible ...
You know it's fucked when her being dead for this is a win for her.
Instead of tempering the villain with a redeeming characteristic, Kirkman tosses "undead pedophile" on the table like an awkward answer in a game of Cards Against Humanity.
Good Guy Tyreese Strangles His Daughter's Teen Boyfriend To Death ... Twice
In both the show and the comics, Tyreese is a good man who struggles with violence (and not only because he insists on killing zombies with a hammer). In one pivotal scene, Tyreese finds out that his girlfriend is dead and loses control, leading to a bloody punching match with Rick.
In the comics, Tyreese has a teenage daughter, Julie, who's in a relationship with a kid named Chris. Eventually, the depression of having to stay in the prison for so many issues gets to the young couple, and they agree on a suicide pact. Chris, always the gentleman, lets the lady go first and shoots her. Before he can turn it on himself, Tyreese walks in, sees his daughter dead ...
... and politely assists Chris in fulfilling his part of the pact. In fact, he's so helpful that he waits for Chris to turn so that he can kill him again -- you can never be too safe!
"Can you get me some extra water? I want a lot of pee for his ashes."
The incredibly depressing adventures of comic book Tyreese continue! At one point he hooks up with Carol -- who is nothing like the cold-blooded survivor TV version -- then later cheats on her with Michonne. Since buying a few pints of ice cream and binge-watching Gilmore Girls for a few weeks isn't an option in the apocalypse, Carol deals with the betrayal another way: by committing suicide.
The zombie later cheats on her with zombie-Tyreese. Probably.
Oh, and even before the apocalypse, Tyreese's loved ones were killing themselves. The guy's like a walking Smiths album.
Michonne Goes Medieval On The Governor's Ass (And Dick, And Eye, And ...)
In the show, Michonne and the Governor are archenemies. He hates her for the sin of vengeance ("killing" his zombie daughter and stabbing him in the eye), while she hates him for committing basically every other mortal sin. There aren't a lot of wholesome do-gooders in the zombie apocalypse. You root for the least-awful character all the way up until they get eaten, then switch to the next-lesser evil.
In the comics, Michonne, Rick, and Glenn are kidnapped by the Governor's people, and the torture starts. The Governor chops off Rick's hand -- which seems awful, but is really the least of the chopping we're about to see. As for Michonne? We don't need to get more graphic than possible here, so we'll just say the Governor is a big fan of "the gimp" scene from Pulp Fiction.
"Should we get rid of her sword?"
"Nah, what's the worst that could happen?"
She eventually gets free, and later captures the Governor. Some run-of-the-mill eye-stabbing and daughter-killing won't do here -- really, in The Walking Dead comics, daughter-killing is like a slap on the wrist. More extreme measures are needed. Here's a quick rundown of Michonne's revenge: She takes a power drill to his shoulders ...
... cuts off his right arm ...
... and shoves a spoon up his ass.
"TWO SCOOPS!"
That last seems one out of place. Almost a delightful, playful break in the torture, to make the rest seem worse by comparison? Nope! She then uses that same spoon to gouge out his eye.
See, that's how you get pinkeye.
For more TWD wholesomeness, check out 4 Reasons 'The Walking Dead' Hates Humans More Than Zombies and 14 Ideas 'The Walking Dead' Should Have Used Years Ago.
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